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September: Arab-London Art Season Begins, How You Can Help It Thrive!

Dear Readers

September is usually the official start of the Art season in London. After the lazy holidaying months, our lovely gorgeous town is back with a vengeance in terms of the Arab-inspired cultural, intellectual and artistic scene. I refer you now to My Curious Inbox for a continually updated listings and full links for what is happening in the next few weeks: www.nahlaink.com/curious-inbox.

But top of the agenda this September has got to be ‘Safar: Festival of Popular Arab Cinema’. Organised by the Arab British Centre (ABC) in association with the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and the Dubai International Film Festival, it will present an incredible schedule from 2 September-5 October that attempts to ‘creatively chronicle the re-mapping of the future of Arab cinema and allows for a unique glimpse of what it might look like tomorrow’. Truly not to be missed!

Of current interest also are two fund-raising campaigns that are truly worth supporting and encouraging. If we as British-Arabs really do care about advancing the exploration, creation and initiation of the Arts in relation to our beleaguered MENA region, please pledge from as little as £5 each to the two following projects and please note they both have an expiry date.

Music 4 Syrian Refugee Children: A ‘Go Fund Me’ campaign by Maya Youssef, who is a Syrian Kanun (plucked zither) player, composer, educator and researcher. Youssef presently holds an unconditional offer to pursue a PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) from September 2014 on the subject of: ‘A practical intervention: An improved musical approach to working with Syrian children at the Refugee Camps’. Her ultimate hope is to one day set up a charity dedicated to bringing music and the performing arts to war-torn Syrian children. For more: www.gofundme.com/cpy09g.

A Lebanese Archive by Ania Dabrowska: A kick-starter campaign to publish a high-quality Art book of a lost archive of Lebanese and Arab photographs that are inspired by the collection of the Lebanese photojournalist Diab Alkarssifi. A chance encounter between Dabrowska and Alkarssifi originally led to the discovery of the rare archive of 27,000 photos and over 100 years of Arab history. This project aims to tell the story behind the photos and bring the history to life. For more: www.kickstarter.com/projects/723440909/a-lebanese-archive-by-ania-dabrowska.

Other than this, I have some articles coming up this month, including a Review of the novel ‘Chewing Gum' by Libyan author Mansour Bushnaf and an Interview with 'Aimen Ajhani: Libyan Hip Hop Artist’.

Please do feel free to contact me with any ideas, listings, stories, events, etc if you would like to see them on Nahla Ink.

Also make sure to sign-up to my Newsletter to be the first in the know.